Over the weekend I helped Stella P. Arbelaez Tascon in making grass paper which would be used for her final project in her MFA program at UCF.
She started by transforming the back patio of her home into a working paper manufacturing factory. She took an unused bathroom door and placed it on two saw horses to create a long table covered in black plastic. A crate from her back shed was used as a station for beating and crushing the bags of grass that we had collected on the roadside.
Grass was boiled in water on the stove and the stove ended up looking like a Chernobyl meltdown. Some of my canvas stretchers were used to create screens which were used to strain the sheets of paper. The first day of paper production we managed to make 5 sheets of paper which were hung from the small folding drying rack, lightly hinted at in the sketch. We were exhausted after that 5 sheet day.
On day two we became far more productive, having learned from our many mistakes made on day 1. Making paper is less science and more trail and error. I took over the pounding and mashing job that is pictured in this sketch. A painters spatula is used to stab the blades and then a mallet was used to pound the fibers even finer. By the end of the day I developed a very definite technique. The fibers were then placed in a blender to further emulsify the mash. I found that the blending was finished when the machine stopped lurching when large chunks of organic matter would catch in the blades.
A large container was filled with water and the screens Stella made were dipped into the water and grass emulsion mixture. Making the paper is a bit like panning for gold, where you want to catch the perfect thin sheet of fibers. Okra was boiled to get a viscous and slick substance which helped to bind the fibers into paper. Another task that I had was to use my fingers to break up the grass mixture into the water in the large vat. My hands were covered with the slippery green mix all day. I rather enjoyed the process.
On day 2 we managed to make about 25 sheets of paper and we could have made more since there was more grass emulsion that I had pounded into a fine slurry. We started using a large clothes line that she has in her back yard to dry off sheets of paper and microfiber. Once the grass mixture was on a screen it would be flipped over onto micro fiber and then more micro fiber sheets would be used to dry off the back of the screen. She became really good at pealing the paper away from the screen. She let me try pealing one late in the day and I failed miserably at first. I finally developed my own technique of easing the paper away with my index finger sliding delicately around the edge.
It was a sunny, gorgeous day with the birds chirping in the trees. It was so much fun assisting. I can’t imagine a more pleasant and productive weekend.

